FBI makes "staggering" discovery while seizing trove of artifacts from home
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
When the FBI showed up at Don Miller's home in rural Indiana in 2014 to seize part of his vast personal collection of artifacts , it was a shock for people who knew him.
"He was very beloved. He was very charismatic," former local reporter Liz Dykes said. Dykes interviewed the 90-year-old former engineer about his time in World War II, his missionary work in Haiti, and most of all, his huge collection of artifacts from around the world.
"The entire house is a museum. There are things everywhere," Dykes recounted. "It was just mind-blowing."
Miller willingly showed his collection to reporters, residents, and even local Boy Scout troops, so when the FBI came calling, she said, "I wanted to know what they were looking for... There had to have been something."
There was: something the FBI hasn't talked about—until now.
"When I first went into his house and saw the size of the collection, it was unlike anything we'd ever seen," Tim Carpenter, who heads the FBI's art crime unit, told CBS News correspondent Anna Werner. "Not only me, but I don't think anybody on the art crime team."
FBI photos – never before shown publicly – give a glimpse of the collection: some 42,000 items, including pre-Colombian pottery, an Italian mosaic, and items from China, some that Miller labeled "Chinese Jewelry" from 500 BC.
"Roughly half of the collection was Native American, and the other half of the collection was from every corner of the globe," Carpenter said.
But the problem? Carpenter said a lot of it had been illegally obtained. Miller admitted he'd gone on digging expeditions in foreign countries and around the United States for decades in violation of antiquities laws.
"Did he understand that he had obtained some things illegally?" Werner asked.
"He did," Carpenter said, adding that Miller admitted to it.
Miller eventually agreed to let the FBI seize some 5,000 artifacts so they could be returned to their countries of origin. But Carpenter said all the FBI's careful planning couldn't prepare them for another, more disturbing discovery.
"About 2,000 human bones," Carpenter said. "To the best of our knowledge right now, those 2,000 bones represent about 500 human beings."
Nearly all of those human remains, he said, were also dug up from ancient Native American burial sites.
"It's very staggering," Carpenter said.
"Why would anybody have that many human bones?" Werner asked.
"I don't know. I truly don't know," Carpenter said.
Native American burial sites dating back thousands of years have been a source of fascination for archeologists for decades. One old government film showed the excavation of an ancient Native American village in Alabama. Over time, many other sites have been looted by people seeking artifacts and even skeletons.
"This comes down to a basic human right," said Holly Cusack-McVeigh, a professor of archaeology brought in by the FBI on the Miller case.
"We have to think about the context of: Who has been the target of grave robbing for centuries? Whose ancestors have been collected for hobby?" Cusack-McVeigh said. "And this comes down to racism. They aren't digging white graves."
Experts determined the remains found at Miller's residence likely came from Native American tribes including the Arikara. In North Dakota, tribal official Pete Coffey is working with the FBI to bring them home.
"All too often here we have been treated as curiosities rather than a people here," Coffey said. "They could very well be my own great, great, great, great grandfather, or grandmother, you know, that had been – I characterize it as being ripped out of the earth, you know."
Miller died in 2015. We wanted to know what his widow thought about all this, so we went to Miller's home, where a Chinese terracotta warrior figure stood guard outside.
"I can't comment on the situation at this time," Miller's wife said.
But Carpenter believes in his later years, Miller understood the ramifications of what he did.
"I think he felt compelled to try and do the right thing and return these home," Carpenter said.
Returning those Native American ancestors home is what Carpenter calls the FBI's most important mission now.
"You have to treat these people with dignity. These are human beings and people. It matters. It has meaning to people today, it has meaning to our children and their children," Carpenter said.
So far, the FBI has already returned items from Miller's collection to several countries, including Cambodia, Canada, Colombia, and Mexico. A Chinese delegation will go to Indianapolis this week to claim artifacts. They have already returned some Native American ancestral remains to tribes in the South Dakota region and are planning a large-scale repatriation of remains to other tribes in the coming months.
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Collecter I'm sure...More like a frickin' grave robber.
C'mon, K!
It's not like those bones were from real people!
Sadly Bob, a lot of people believe that.
Throwing the name Pocahontas around ring any bells?
There you go, dave...Perfect
Wow, just wow. Gob-smacked....
he even has one of the Chinese terracotta warriors?
Good grief......
smh...
Maybe the FBI can sell tickets to go desecrate Millers grave, over, and over, and over....
It's mind boggling that someone could do that to graves...What a POS.
"We have to think about the context of: Who has been the target of grave robbing for centuries? Whose ancestors have been collected for hobby?" Cusack-McVeigh said. "And this comes down to racism. They aren't digging white graves."
Rural Indiana old white conservative believing laws don't apply to him and that native American graves were nothing but trash heaps to be picked through for profit. I don't think we have to guess who this old bigot would have voted for if he hadn't died in 2015...
Sadly illegal trafficking of NA artifices is really big business in the US.
Am I hallucinating, or does the article say the FBI has known about the NA artifacts for 5 years and are just now saying something about it?
Also, why repatriate artifacts from other countries before repatriating the artifacts and human remains here?
You're not hallucinating, that's what it states.
As far as returning the human remains here, there is probably more than one tribe involved which will require more time and research as well.
Grave Robbing.
Descreating.
Lowest depths of human depravity.
Worst form of cowardice is disrespecting the deceased.
No way they can self-advocate.
Shameful and pathetic as can be.
Enoch, Just Shaking My Head.
It is mind boggling niijii....You're correct, it is the lowest depths of human depravity. There is not excuse for it.
Why would someone want human remains. Sick.
I can understand archaeological digs, like finding an ancient city but what was described that he did was illegal. Grave robbing.
Yes, of course archaeological digs are fine, but what we have here is grave robbing, there is no excuse.
Hey Kav, any ideas on how they were able to hide such an extensive operation here in the US? I would have to take lots of people to perpetrate such a heinous thing and keep it a secret.
Sister, there is a whole underground and very sophisticated operation when dealing in illegal Native artifacts. There are some loopholes in the law that help the scum, but it is very lucrative, thus it will continue until the laws are made toughter and the loopholes removed...This is happening in congress as we speak.
Here is another that is going to prison.
I wish I could say that it surprises me, but, the desecration of Native American burial sites has been going on for centuries here in the US, and it has been known about for most of that time. But, since native Americans have been considered Godless animals, it has been known about for most of that time, it does not surprise me that a collection of that immense size could be ignored until it was published in the newspaper for others to see, thus, spurring the authorities need to finally act.
Based upon the size and substance of the man's collection of human remains, mostly those of Native Americans, he obviously did not consider them to be worthy of any human value.
I am glad that at some point the remains will be returned to their rightful Tribes and reburied as according to the tradition and customs of their Tribes.
May their Spirits now rest in peace.
After all, even the President of The United States of America craps all over Native American ancestry. Surely, there must be no problem with robing these graves and other artifacts.
SMH.
Ain't that the truth..
smh.
I guess I could understand wanting the artifacts, although it is theft to those cultures and peoples, but I can't get my head around the idea of digging up hundreds of bodies as if those people didn't have basic rights. That is just gross.
You couldn't smudge that house enough for me to enter.
I feel exactly the same.